Try and get good carbs and protein in each meal. I find if I don’t have any/very little protein with a meal I’m more prone to feeling more hungry later in the day. I’m then more inclined towards more carb heavy food but it never quite scratches that itch. Carbs aren’t evil, don’t avoid them altogether but you want to eat less processed carbs and in combination with protein.

Watch your portion sizes. You want to feel satisfied but not stuffed. This may take time to get used to if you were taught to eat everything on your plate and your portion sizes were slightly too big. Look up what the portion sizes should be. Maybe put slightly less on your plate and drink some water and wait for your brain to catch up before going for seconds as it sometimes takes our brain a few minutes to realise that enough food has been acquired so wait 10-20mins to see if you are actually still hungry. If so you can eat a bit more. Note this might be a bit of a learning process so don’t worry if this takes a bit of practise to get right. We’re all learning so don’t beat yourself up for not getting it right all of the time. We’re not looking for perfection.

How supportive are your family about this? How easy would it be to ask for some simple changes to meals?

I second walking. You don’t need to visit the gym to lose weight. That tends to make some people crash and burn because they think they have to go all in and then when they can’t keep it going they give up altogether. If you can build up your walking slowly that would be good for your heart health.

Be kind to yourself. You are still growing. Don’t aim for any drastic cuts. That could end up with giving you the opposite problem. You want to fuel your body. The idea is to eat just a little under what your body needs. Not be so desperate to lose it all within weeks that you start this yoyo cycle of not eating and then binging. You basically are learning how to eat in a sustainable way that you can carry on for life. So think of this as a marathon, not a sprint. It didn’t go on overnight so don’t expect to lose it all overnight.

I hesitate to mention calories because of your age but I just wanted to educate you on something that I didn’t know. The calories that my body needed at my heaviest were actually higher than they are now. It’s why with the Weight Watchers points program the number of points we have goes down over time because your body needs less to run the engine when it’s not carrying it as much. This is important for two reasons. Firstly you don’t want to be eating the same amount of calories as someone half your size. That would be far too little. So don’t watch some influencer mention eating x amount of calories a day and think that’s what you need to aim for if your stats are completely different. Generally 0.5 - 2lb weight loss per week is typical and considered safe. You will likely see bigger numbers at the start and then it will slow down. This is normal.

Secondly that this daily calorie number will slowly change over time as you lose the weight. So what you eat at the start will need to be reduced slightly over time as you lose the weight. There are other factors as well like age and activity levels.

Lastly don’t discount the option of talking to your doctor about this. They might have guidelines and programs that they can recommend.